Third Chance
by Nichol1
Summary: Sometimes life hands us third chances. It's up to us to take them.


Third Chance  
  
Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all related characters are property of Takahashi Rumiko and co. I make no profit from them; I'm only borrowing their toys for a little while for my own devious reasons. I'll return them immediately and unharmed, I promise.  
  
*** ***  
  
The stars glimmered overhead and beckoned to her, but Sango the demon- slayer was blind to their beauty. She had lain underneath them so many nights that their patterns had become familiar, like the faces of family or dear friends. There was something reassuring about the stars - though humans died or departed, the stars never changed.  
A cool breeze touched her skin and she pulled her blanket more tightly about herself. Rolling over to her side, Sango propped herself up on one elbow and looked about for her companion. Like so many nights before this one, he was nowhere to be seen. Sighing, she crept from her warm pallet and began to search the hidden corners of the forest for him.  
She found him sitting beside a river that sparkled softly in the cool moonlight. He was completely silent and the wind drowned out the quiet sound of his breathing. Sango paused for a moment to watch him, troubled by what she saw. There was sadness in him that had not been there before, not even when the future seemed grim and all hope was lost. Every curve of his body was infused with this melancholy, as though it had become as much a part of his being as his blood or bones. She ached for him, an old ache that fit easily in the well-worn grooves of her heart.  
"Why have you followed me?" he asked, with just a trace of the defensive anger that always accompanied his voice. The breeze ruffled his long black hair and in that moment he seemed utterly human. Sango did not answer immediately and the silence grew heavy between them.  
"Because you're hurting and because I'm your friend," she said at last. He snorted softly at this, as though he doubted the truth of her words. Offended, she turned to leave but he stopped her with a gesture. There was an apology in his eyes that his mouth was to proud to speak. Accepting this, Sango sat down beside him on a stone covered with moss.  
"I used to play by this river when I was very young," he said suddenly. "I was so carefree then. Now I know life is much like this river - no action can be undone or any word unsaid, any more than the water can flow uphill."  
She was surprised, as this was the most he had spoken to her in six months. Gently, Sango replied, "That is true. The river keeps flowing and life keeps going on. We keep going on, Inuyasha."  
He nodded once, very subtly. Inuyasha was never comfortable in his human state; she suspected that was why he had slipped away under cover of darkness, to await the daylight and the return of his demon form. Sango wanted to tell him that the human was as much a part of him as the demon, but did not dare.  
There was so much Sango the demon-slayer did not dare.  
  
When Miroku died, she had been consumed by her grief. Sango, who had stood fearless in the face of terrifying demons and monsters, found she was utterly helpless to save him from the evil in his own hand. Naraku had paid dearly for his curse, but too late, much too late.  
She had crouched over Naraku's smoking remains, expecting to feel the thrill of victory and relief at having secured her vengeance. But only a great and terrible hollowness had filled her. What was the use of killing Naraku, of killing every demon on the planet, if it did not bring Miroku back? Vengeance was supposed to destroy the pain, but it did nothing. Sango wanted her screams to scratch the gates of heaven.  
In her grief she had fled from the company of her old friends, fled back to the realm of the demon slayers, back to the old life she had known before she ever met that monk and the half-demon and the time tossed girl. It was all she knew. They were her people; they took her in and cared for her in her near madness. Sango had left without saying a word to Inuyasha and the others, and when months passed with no word from her friends she thought she had been forgotten. In time her madness departed and left her with only a broken spirit. She began hunting demons again, and with every kill she felt once more the empty victory over Naraku. It's all meaningless! she wanted to scream, but never did.  
A summer passed, and then an autumn and winter had fastened its icy grip on the land before one of her fellow slayers breathlessly awoke her early in the morning. "There's a demon at the gates," he had told her, eyes wide with terror, "he says he knows you. He demands to see you."  
Shrugging on one of her warm robes, Sango had walked out into the cold day blinking her sleepy eyes. Sure enough, Inuyasha was standing at the gates, tetsusaiga in hand. The other slayers eyed him warily until she waved them away and spoke calming words.  
"Where is Shippou?" she had asked him, realizing with a start it had been a year since she had last seen any of her friends.  
"Gone."  
"Kaede?"  
"Gone."  
"Kagome?"  
"All gone," he had breathed, and the last word was like the last gasp of a dying man. Sango did not say another word, only went and packed her few things, summoned Kirara, and sharpened her hiraikotsu. The other slayers had tried to stop her from leaving but she had only shaken her head.  
"I am the last," she had said.  
"You belong with us," the elders told her.  
"I am the last," she had repeated, and pointed to Inuyasha. Then she walked out the gates with him and never looked back. What is done is done.  
Sango never asked Inuyasha why he had come for her, or how he had found her, and he never told. He also never spoke of any of the friends they had lost, and certainly never of Kagome, even in passing. They fought and killed demons; it was their greatest talent, and one grateful people would reward them for with the necessities of life. Always they sought a place these talents would not be necessary, and never did they find that place.  
Winter had faded into spring when they came across a village devastated by a particularly nasty demon with a taste for young female flesh. Inuyasha had fairly foamed at the mouth when he attacked and the monster's dying screams could be heard for miles in every direction. They found one survivor, a small girl whom they returned to her family. "Keep her close," Inuyasha had told her father, "life doesn't give us third chances."  
Once they had neared the place where Kagome's well resided, Inuyasha had insisted on taking a long detour to avoid it. Sango slipped away one evening and visited it; she found the well had been boarded up and covered with heavy stones, though who had done it was a mystery. She never asked Inuyasha and he never told.  
There was no place in the world for them, the demon-slayer and the half-demon, and nothing to do but wander it searching. They became lean and fierce, killers who were sick of killing, lovers who had lost their loved ones. Her hiraikotsu became as sharp and lethal as his claws. Sometimes they could not remember why they stayed together, only knowing that the thought of separating was unbearable. They were more silent than speaking.  
Summer was dying slowly when the change had come upon Inuyasha and he had transformed into a human. He had never dealt with it well and now he was especially vulnerable and lost. So he had fled to this peaceful place, seeking something to still the turmoil within him.  
The horizon began to glow and streaks of deep purple appeared in the darkness. Slowly pinks and then oranges and reds appeared, and finally the sun burst into being. When Sango looked again at Inuyasha's face his eyes were once more gold. The light seemed to warm them from the core outwards. "I am tired of silence," she said suddenly. "I am tired of half-living. We are alive, Inuyasha. So we should live."  
"We don't get third chances." The old rage and bitterness had returned to his voice. She thought of her family, of Miroku, then of Kikyou and Kagome. They were gone and yet she and Inuyasha were still here.  
"Perhaps you're wrong. Perhaps we do. As long as we're living, we get chances, third and fourth and fifth chances, a million chances every day. I'm ready to take some of those chances." Sango offered her hand to him, offered him everything.  
For a moment he was completely still, listening to the gurgle of the stream beside him. Then, at last, he reached out and took her hand.  
  
Finis. 


End file.
